Questelles Beach Boys on a mission to protect ‘best beach, bar none’

by Katherine Renton

The ‘Questelles Beach Boys’ have been working tirelessly to keep destruction and destroyers of the “best beach, bar none” at bay, and show no signs of stopping.

Rupert Mulzac, head of the informally titled “Questelles Beach Boys,” spoke to SEARCHLIGHT last Saturday, while the community group was in the middle of their monthly beach clean-up activity.

The ‘Beach Boys’ consists of nine core members from the community, who use ‘Xpresseon Bar’ as a base. They rake the sand on the beach once a month, looking for plastics and leaves to remove, and bury respectively. The team, which was joined by an additional two members on that day, has been cleaning the beach religiously for the past nine months.

However, this is not enough for the group, whose ultimate goal is to make the beach as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

Mulzac says they intend to dig out a well that has been a part of the beach for years and restore it. “The well has been a part of this beach for as long as I can remember and I grew up right here and I’m 67,” Mulzac says.

The well, which used to be fully functioning, is now “full of garbage. It’s totally full of trash,” he said.

The group was in the process of attacking the amount of waste in the large well by digging it out. “We’re gonna make it aesthetically pleasing, and we’re gonna erect a cover over there and make something, an attraction, you know and hopefully people won’t throw things down the well.”

Mulzac said after they restore the outside, using acid, they intend to paint the well in ‘Vincy colours’.

He says that the beach is normally packed on weekends, noting, “The only drawback is the bathroom. That’s the only drawback.”

He stated that the beach does not have a bathroom, but they are planning to get one.

“WE FM (the radio station) and I have been talking, and we’re pretty sure that we can come up with a bathroom. I’ve spoken to [the National Parks, Rivers and Beaches Authority] also, Andrew Wilson there, and we’re supposed to have a meeting this coming week, all three of us,” he intimated. He said the plan is that, between them, they will be able to build a bathroom and give it to one of the community members to run.

The movement is not without its challenges. Mulzac lamented at the huge problem of sand removal. “They know that the rules say you shouldn’t take the sand, maybe five bags or six bags to do something around the house; but no, they bring a hundred bags, because they know it’s in bags; that’s their rationale,” he stated.

Mulzac described the seriousness of the problem saying, “They take a hundred bags today, a hundred bags tomorrow. They take a truck load of bags!” He further noted that while the community tries to do something about it, they don’t have the authority.

Another problem the group is coping with is that when the rain falls, all the garbage from the village runs down to the beach.

However, through their efforts, they have received a skip from the Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA).

Further, last Saturday, the group was in the process of expanding their efforts through the placement of a number of painted signs around the beach, relaying messages such as, “Removal of Sand: Prohibited” and “Take Pictures. Leave only footprints.”

“We’re hoping that as people see the beach, they would get more conscientious and take their trash with them,” Mulzac intoned.

The group, which does this out of patriotic pride, ultimately has a simple goal, as stated by Mulzac, “To keep the beach clean and if the beach is kept clean, then we’re gonna have traffic, right? It is such a nice beach and bar none, best beach in St Vincent.”